I used to be a decathlete in college (DII) and now CrossFit... I can tell you that I can run 1500M times in the 4:20's, polevault 15', high jump 6'3" and 400M in 48 sec.... When it comes to the heavy weights in CF I find myself behind the top guys, BUT with the body weight stuff and the lighter weight WOD I can fly thru them and my times are competitive with the top guys. I think I could beat most top CF'ers in the runs from 400M up to any distance (still run the 400M in 50 sec, 800M in 2:00, 1 mile in 4:40's and 10K in 32 min). All this without a hugh training schedule.

That being said, I am not a Oly level Decathlete and think those guys are very tough at what they do, but it is not CF. Would love to see one of the top athletes come into the games and give it a try. Then we could end all of this wondering.

If an elite football player or decathlete can hang with an elite Crossfitter than what does that say about the principle of GPP?

From what I see/hear/read is that GPP lays down the foundation and should prepare you for specificity such as football or even the 10 specific events that make up a decathlon. I haven't seen/read/heard where specificity traning can prepare you for GPP.

I would think that any elite level participant in a field sport or cross-disciplinary athletic event would have to have excellent GPP. The athletes most likely to be lacking in GPP would be the specialists: distance runners, throwers, and others who pursue a single domain to the exclusion of all else.

If an elite football player or decathlete can hang with an elite Crossfitter than what does that say about the principle of GPP?

From what I see/hear/read is that GPP lays down the foundation and should prepare you for specificity such as football or even the 10 specific events that make up a decathlon. I haven't seen/read/heard where specificity traning can prepare you for GPP.

Am I onto something or completely misinformed?

Yeah, what Katherine said. Some sports require a lot of GPP, and so the athletes who excel at them have even more GPP. I think wrestling, football (FBs RBs, QBs, WRs, TEs, and DBs only) rugby, MMA, and decathlon all fall into this category.

You also have to realize that pro atheltes are a different breed. They recover well, are naturally strong and powerful, etc. THere are thousands of other kids training just as hard and they are the ones that gome out on top.

I used to be a decathlete in college (DII) and now CrossFit... I can tell you that I can run 1500M times in the 4:20's, polevault 15', high jump 6'3" and 400M in 48 sec.... When it comes to the heavy weights in CF I find myself behind the top guys, BUT with the body weight stuff and the lighter weight WOD I can fly thru them and my times are competitive with the top guys. I think I could beat most top CF'ers in the runs from 400M up to any distance (still run the 400M in 50 sec, 800M in 2:00, 1 mile in 4:40's and 10K in 32 min). All this without a hugh training schedule.

That being said, I am not a Oly level Decathlete and think those guys are very tough at what they do, but it is not CF. Would love to see one of the top athletes come into the games and give it a try. Then we could end all of this wondering.

How long have you been doing CF and what were your times on various WODs when you first started? How much can you deadlift? C&J? Have you competed at Sectionals/Regionals?

Not related to you, but what people need to understand is that simply having good GPP as a whole is not the same as excelling at the CF Games. CF has a lot of specific movements that not a lot of people do: Double unders, thrusters, burpees, muscle-ups, kipping pull-ups, high rep bodyweight stuff, high rep box jumps, wall ball, deadlifts, C&J, snatch, etc. (most athletes do some of that, but hardly any do all of it). And outside of getting stronger at the movements, it takes time to get good at the cardio aspect of the specific movements.

Double unders: relatively easy and some people you wouldn't think can bang out gagillions of these

thrusters: not terribly difficult if you can front squat and push press

burpees: ez

muscle-ups: not terribly difficult for those with base strength. false grip is very challenging

kipping pull-ups: not hard

high rep bodyweight stuff: ...
high rep box jumps: ...
wall ball: not really hard
deadlifts: only difficult when weight gets heavy
C&K: some time is required and technique to get over 250lbs as far as CF goes
snatch: difficult

As well, Annie T was a gymnast before a polevaulter apparently. And no, girl's don't really work ring muscle-ups ever. Sometimes, bar muscle-ups. On rare occasion.

Obviously things like kipping pull-ups aren't hard, but how many people can do 40 of them without ever doing them before (especially someone over 180lbs)? I certainly haven't seen many.

And it's not the they aren't going to know how to do high rep box jumps, it's that they'll tire fast on something like that if they haven't practiced them. Upper body stuff like pull-ups and ring dips might tire people even more since hardly anyone has peripheral adaptations in their upper body.

I think it depends. When it comes to the decathlete, a lot of specialized training is involved. So if the transition is easier then of course going one way would seem to be better. But then again, think about a decthalete never had done a thruster/pullup and being challenge to do "Fran"

hmmm..inquiry minds wanna know!!!!

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just my view from a couple of years experience competing in decathlon.

the guys i competed against were usually pretty one sided....
that is they could run extremely fast, jump really high, and throw real far but when it came to 1500m (longest event in decathlon) most of them struggled.

i think while decathletes and elite footballers would crush the weightlifting and shorter metcons,
anything that was like the 09 games 7km hill run or a long metcon they would find a lot more challenging especially with no specific training.

personally i dont think a decathlete could rock up to the games having never experienced crossfit and win, i do not even believe they would make top 10,

however with a few months of solid training i think they would adapt prettty quickly and could end up doing very well.

the same does not go for a crossfitter transferring into high level decathlon.

as much as i dont like saying it even someone like Mikko would not do at all well, this is because their is a lot of technique needed to do some events and a lot more strength and power than needed in crossfit is involved.

some of it also comes down to genetics, as a decathlete if you do not have prodominantly fast twitch muscle fibers then in my opinion you will never be able to reach that top level because of the nature of the events.

just my 0.02

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